I want to lower my high night time cortisol. I am taking holy basis and ashwaganda during the day, can I take these herbs at night as well? Is there anything else that I could take to lower cortisol at night and that is effective?
Would appreciate your suggestions.
First, are you sure that cortisol is high? Meaning you have lab tested it? You can take ashwaganda at night time. Also you could add some zink but with food AS it may diskurb Your stomach.
Yes, I have had a saliva test which shows very high levels of cortisol throughout the day. Thanks for the suggestions - I will try zinc.
Hi Mischa - a year since your blog about your high Cortisol, but grateful to know if your Cortisol level lowered after using Holy Basil & Ashwaghanda ? And while your Cortisol was high, was your Heart Rate a little elevated too ? Thanks
Hi QUEST-33 I have managed to lower my high cortisol - problem is it has now dropped too low.
I saw a private functional doctor for high cortisol and he recommended holy basil and ashwaganda which did work at the time along with b5 morning and evening. There is another supplement that lowers cortisol which works well but cannot remember the name of it. I know Humanbean used it some time ago for high cortisol.
My blood pressure shot up when my cortisol was high.
Hi there - yep, my blood pressure too ! Did your heart rate increase with raised Cortisol ? How long & how much Holy Basil did you take ?
Hi - I can't remember if my heart rate was raised but it wouldn't surprise me if it had. Everything else went up! Continually hot and sweating, high anxiety, couldn't sleep at night. I would fall asleep but wake during the early hours and stay awake until morning. My skin became very dry, my hair fell out, high anxiety, etc. I found then that symptoms would mimic hypo and hyper.
I took three capsules a day of the Holy Basis spread out evenly across the day. I also took 200mcg of B5 1st thing am and last thing p.m. I took the Ashwaganda with the Holy Basis but I remember not feeling very well on Ashwaganda for some reason. I stopped that and continued with the Holy Basis.
I can't remember exactly how long it took to lower my cortisol but I did keep an eye on it with periodic saliva tests every say, three months or so. Gradually I could see the cortisol lowering with each saliva test. It was very reassuring. My original saliva tests were way, way up there.
The other supplement which is supposed to be stronger than Holy Basil is phosphatidylserine. And it must be the serine one. I hope this helps.
Mischa - thank you, so helpful. I had elevated Cortisol years back & had similar symptoms - sweats, high BP, HR, felt hot, waking in night, difficulty getting to sleep feeling overstimulated. So understood the high cortisol result. (this was due to taking too much Cortex !) & levels reduced as soon as stopped. But for some reason, I have had very high cortisol urine results & suffer non of the usual symptoms. Go off to sleep fine, although do wake around 5 am. No sweats or feeling anxious. Heart rate & temperature if anything slightly lower than usual. Very odd. Can I ask what make Holy Basil you used ? Thank you - glad yours has settled down.
That's really interesting. What symptoms, if any, do you have? It may not be related to cortisol.
I took Pukka Holy Basil and Ashwaganda and Solgar B5.
..it depends on what is causing your high cortisol. Some on here have what appears to be Cushings Disease. In this case herbals will not lower it.
How do you know if you have Cushings? What do you look for?
Mischa,
If you had Cushings Disease all of your cortisol results would be high.
hump on upper back, round face, red stretch mark looking lines, blood sugar issues, high cholesterol, of course high cortisol, but that can appear normal at times. This is why testing must be done for many weeks. Some Cushing's runs in cycles. Just had a friend who was told she didn't have it after 2 separate, different tests..which is really common. This person has every symptom in the book. She has been put on a diet and stains! Terrible.
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